


Your little brother never tells you, but he loves you so

by Pearly_Pornography



Category: Metalocalypse
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Arguing, Depression, Drug Addiction, Gen, Group Therapy, Minor Character Death, Past Abuse, Post-Doomstar Requiem, Transphobia
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-10-26
Updated: 2017-10-26
Packaged: 2019-01-21 05:27:19
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,776
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/12450549
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Pearly_Pornography/pseuds/Pearly_Pornography
Summary: Dr. Twinkletits attempts to hold family therapy for the first time in almost 20 years.





	Your little brother never tells you, but he loves you so

"Here's your paycheck, and an extra three-hundred dollars."

"Really piling it on, aren't you."

"It's gonna be tough."

"I know, I know, I ain't stupid, Charlie."

Charles pinched his nosebridge.

"...Alright, alright." The knock on Johnathan's office door brought him out of his twelve seconds of happiness. With sweaty palms, he shoved his check in his handbag and kicked one of his legs over the other. Charles sighed. "Should I get it?"

"I'm assuming you're leaving anyway."

Charles swung the door open. Behind the door was Pickles, and his brother, to boot. Immediately the CFO ducked out of the room and out of the blast range.

"Who's dis guy."

"'s our band therapist." Pickles stared directly into Johnathan's soul. He hated showing up here. The two brothers looked worse for wear. Shuffling into the two cushy chairs Johnathan had laid out, the brother sat on his side for whatever reason that may have been.

"You can sit down, yanno."

"Huh?" The brother blinked. "Nah, dude. I got bedsores. They were this close to necrosis. Wha'ever that means."

"It means that your skin cells die horribly and can't be properly repaired without a graft." Johnathan flipped to a blank sheet of paper on his clipboard. "Alright, so. After uh, the thing, Charles told me he wants you two to work things out among each other. Like fuckin' bros, chilling out, yeah." 

"Work things out? Nah man, me an' Pickles are cool as shit. Right dood?"

Pickles grumbled.

"Yeh."

"That wasn't a very decisive answer." Johnathan responded. Pickles seemed to recede further into his plush seat. "Is something bothering you?"

"Nup."

"Glad we got this settled. Pickles, help me up."

"Charles said we gahtta be here at least an hour."

"Fuck're we gonna do here for an hour?" He grunted, shifting awkwardly in his seat. "Fuckin' hell..."

"...What was your childhood like?"

"Pretty cool."

"Awful."

The brother netted his fingers together. Johnathan began to write once more.

"What's your name?"

"Seth."

Seth and Pickles. He nodded, writing in chicken-scratch on his pad of looseleaf. "Yeh, me 'n Pickles would fuckin' run through the yard and the town 'n shit. Buy stuff. Eat ice cream in private property. He poured me a glass a' vodka once and it was like a bonding moment. Mom was kinda cunty."

"She was incredibly cunty." 

"Jeez, dude, don't say that stuff. She's our mother."

"Molly." Johnathan said to himself. "...Pickles. Talk to me."

"Nuh."

Johnathan grunted. Prying wouldn't do him any good, he supposed. He clicked his pen absentmindedly.

"Seth. How'd you get bedsores that bad?"

"He din't git up from bed fer, like... awhile. An' I think he stopped actually moving fer like, a few days 'fore I came to get 'im."

"Jesus."

"Pickles." Seth grunted. "Don't tell 'im that, 's personal."

"He's a  _therapist_. Yer supposed to tell 'em personal shit."

"I 'ave dignity."

"You both smell like cheap whiskey." Johnathan shot back at both of them, to make them shut the fuck up. "You're both fucking wrecks. And it's my job to un-wreck your shit. So you'd better fucking speak up and quit acting like you're above therapy."

"Sounds like I touched a nerve, doc."

"Why were you in your bed for that long."

"None. Of. Your. Business." 

Dammit, he wasn't a fucking child psychologist.

"I have no idea what yer tryin' to accomplish here, but I don't think it's workin'." Pickles just had to tag onto the conversation. Johnathan banished the though of wringing his neck right then and there, and instead attempted to remember his anger management skills.  _With his paycheck, he'd be able to buy enough coke to last him a lifetime._

"How were you guys together. When you were younger."

"Fuckin' great." Seth insisted. Pickles grunted. "What? We had a fuckin' great time 'till you moved out."

"Yer so fulla shit, dood."

"After ya left I got so bored I started drinkin'. Before that, y'wouldn't let me!"

"You gonna blame me for your alcohol problems?"

"You blame me for yours, I'm just sayin'."

"I didn't fuckin' burn down that garage and you know it!"

"Well shit, they were your firecrackers, ain't my fault I was usin' 'em!"

"See? See what I fucking told you, doc?" Pickles' hand motions were frantic, and already his face was red. "This asshole fuckin' hates me. He fuckin'  _hates me_. Ol' Molly trained 'im to hate me, so he does, end of story."

"I never said I hated you."

"You didn't have to."

That made the room go quiet. Johnathan nearly dropped his pen. He only had one thing to say, and he said it quietly.

"Wow, you guys are  _fucked._ " 

Pickles stared towards the window. Seth attempted to roll over and look the other way, then hissing through his teeth.

" _God, why'd the sore have to be on my ass._ "

"You guys need some serious fuckin' help. Goddamn." Deep down, Johnathan was praying the ground would swallow him whole and let him disappear from this shit. God, he hated family drama. As if his flamboyantly gay ass didn't have enough of that. 

"...Can I  _go._ "

"No."

Seth growled, arms crossed.

"What makes you think he hates you, Pickles."

"Oh,  _please_." Pickles flicked his hand, eyebrows lowered. "He's a fuckin' asshole. We meet up? No 'how are you'. No 'how's yer day'. It's, 'hey bro, I need money'. Always. Or, 'hey dude, I need you to do somethin' fer me'. He gets off on the fact that mom likes him better. He's an ex-con, he don't give a fuck about nobody. He don't give a fuck about his wife, or his fuckin' family, or even his jahb."

"Yes I do." Seth muttered.

"You have a fuckin' funny way a' showin' it. Y'even let your douchebag friends pull shit straight from my wallet."

"I didn't know they were--"

"How could you naht fuckin' know. Do you think I'm  _stupid?_ "

"No, I--"

"Jest shut up. Okay? Stahp." 

"You two need to fucking shut up and quit arguing for two seconds." The brothers went silent. "...Seth. Do you hate your brother?"

"...No."

"You don't."

"I don't hate 'im." 

"...Do you think he hates you?"

"I guess I didn't until uh..." He stared down at the floor. "Now."

"It took yeh that fuckin' long? I beat the shit outta you at yer own wedding."

"...I guess." Seth's eyes were half shut.

"I literally told you that I blame you for my alcohol addiction."

"Yeh."

"I thought you hated  _me._ "

There was silence for a moment.

"I thought you were pretty cool."

Pickles' expression was blank. Pure shock and nothing more. Johnathan was furiously scribbling on his clipboard. Depressed, the both of them were. Seth was still talking, and Johnathan was getting a goddamn wrist cramp. "I really wanted to start a fuckin' label with you, you're like, the best... instrument playin' guy of all time. Like that kid. From that song. About the, uh, the devil and the dumb gold violin."

"...Iss called 'The Devil Went Down To Georgia'."

"Yeh. Yeh. That one."

Silence once more.

"...Y'didn't start takin' drugs, did you?"

"Bro. How the fuck do you think I survived."

"Seth, I told you not to."

"Well you weren't around to keep tellin' me not to, and Parker Halliwell let me try weed."

"Parker Halliwell told me he wouldn't let yeh try weed!"

"He lied to ya."

"Gahd, he was such a dildo."

"Yeh, he was from Texas. Tex _ass._ "

Pickles rolled his eyes. Johnathan made sure to note that he'd now heard one of the worst puns ever conceived by man, and this knowledge would now finally give him a reason to die. Aside from, of course, the fact that he knew the intimate details of Murderface's messed-up sex life.

"...Did you both get along with your parents?"

"Hell no, I didn't." Pickles sighed. "They hate my fuckin' guts."

"They're fuckin' dickheads." Seth grunted. "Dad's such an ass."

"Yeh." Pause. "Did dad ever, like...  _hit you_?"

"A little."

"There ain't no such thing as a little, either he did or he didn't." 

"Uh, then yes, I'm pretty sure he hit most people."

"...Damn, our family's a mess."

"Could be worse."

"I mean- 'could be worse' ain't really a good thing."

"Bpppttt."

Johnathan accidentally dropped his pen. In fact, he was going so fast, it launched into the bars of his radiator. Without another word, he just withdrew an extra from his pocket. Siblings were fascinating. If only he'd had any for himself.

"Maybe you two just need some time to yourselves. To be brothers. You know."

Seth flapped his lips together, even louder this time. 

"Bpppppppt."

"What?"

"Once I get back to Australia, I'm hittin' my fuckin' bed. Another couple months oughtta clear up the grief."

'Grief'. That was a word Johnathan heard a lot. And only ever in one context, too.

"Did someone die?"

"Maybe." 

All was quiet, once again. "He didn't deserve it." Pickles looked even more uncomfortable.

"Who was it?"

"Boyfriend." Seth had his eyes pointed squarely at the wall. "Don't tell my mother."

"I, uh, it'd be illegal for me to tell her." 

"Alright. I have a boyfriend." Pause. "Had. A boyfriend."

"Yeh. Magnus."

Johnathan nearly launched his pen across the room for the second time.

"...Hammersmith?"

Seth nodded, now looking morose, as melancholic as ever before. Bedsores, and alcoholism, and depression, all over a man who, according to Johnathan's patients, was the epitome of awful. Was he capable of love? Frankly, Johnathan just saw him as the villain of a Saturday morning cartoon. Laughing and gritting his teeth and standing in front of a lightening strike, planning world domination or whatever. Even the mental image of Magnus Hammersmith was like that. After all, he'd never seen a photo of the guy, and just kind of imagined him as a metalhead Dr. Wily.

"Bro, I get you, if Nate'n died I'd be fucked up over it."

"You get my problem, but y'don't actually. Miss him. No funeral, even."

"He kept Toki an' Abigail in a basement!"

"He was the only goddamn one who talked at me like I was a person."

Two different perspectives.

"Well, there's no way for either of you to understand each other's idea of Magnus, obviously." Johnathan laid that thought out. "You have to--"

"Iss been an hour." 

Johnathan stared at his watch, and it was true. It had been an hour. But he hadn't done anything. He barely... fixed anything. And Seth was already getting up and leaving. Pickles stared. And looked around. 

"...Maybe you should jus' see him alone next time."

"Yeah."

For whatever reason, Johnathan Twinkletits wished he hadn't gotten his paycheck.


End file.
